Lying...A necessity of Travelling in India

I am an absolutely terrible liar.

Unfortunately lying is an essential skill for travelling in India, for two main situations: social, well-meaning interactions about your personal life and getting out of something or taken for a ride in some way, shape or form.

Preparing for my trip to India, I read up on travelling alone, and particularly travelling as a woman alone. There is a lot you can do to minimise potentially uncomfortable situations and excessive hassles (though your definition of 'excessive hassle' might be different to mine, as I've grown immune to quite a bit in my last 3 months of travel). Any guidebook will recommend first and foremost that you cover up your shoulders and wear loose, long clothing - better yet, get a salwar kameez (also known as a Punjabi dress). Of course there's the usual sensible travelling during the day, being aware of your surroundings, and adopting a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to interactions with people.

Then there's the fake husband.

Women in general, and western women in particular, are considered 'on the market' and having a fake boyfriend just won't convince hopeful suitors otherwise. You're only off limits if you are married, and making up a husband does tend to put up a sudden barrier between you and the hotel manager/tout/waiter/random person in the street that likes your hair (yes, I got that today - someone just called out "you have nice hair"...um, thank you).

More than that, though, marriage is such a critical event in Indian culture that a woman that isn't married, particularly one in her early 30s, invites all kinds of inquiry and speculation that can be exhausting at best and intrusive or awkward at worst. And let's not even go there with the big D.

It's important to establish the husband early on in an interaction, which isn't too difficult as most initial conversations will go something like:

Where are you from?

What do you do?

Are you married?

On answering the affirmative you then have to go into what your husband does for a living, where he is, how many children you have (oh! 2 boys! How wonderful, what are their names?), etc. Hopefully then by this point you have the opportunity to get a word in edgewise to change the subject (How about Tendulkar's batting against Australia in the cricket last night?). It is, overall, an effective way to deal with the taboo of being an unmarried early 30s something woman travelling in India alone, as well as a way to put some distance between me and someone who might wish to take our interaction in a direction I wouldn't wish it to go.

Trouble is, I often forget what I've said and later on in the conversation end up stumbling through trying to remember just what it was that I said (What sons? Oh, yeah, them...crap, I thought I said a daughter. And was my husband unable to get time off work, or was he meeting me in the next train station? Is he a diplomat in Delhi or a scuba diving instructor this time?). Then there was the time in the silk shop, after being taken for a ride on a 3 hour tour of Varanasi (90 minutes of temples, 90 minutes of the hotel manager getting commission on any purchases in the shop he marches you into). The silk shop manager, a lovely old man that I didn't trust for a second ("I'm not interested in money, I am an old man"...my ass). Since I had told the hotel manager about my fake husband and children I had to keep up this line of story, and the silk shop owner decided that he would give me his best price on 3 scarves only if I promised to keep just one scarf for me, and give one to my mother and one to my husband's mother.

I bought none (good thing too as I later realised his price was about 7 times what others paid for a similar item).

Other lies:

-I'm in banking (can't see myself back in that industry any time soon)

-I'm leaving on the 6pm train to Agra (...tomorrow, but I'd just like to change to a much nicer hotel)

-The 1000 rupee note is all I have (horde the small notes like your life depends on it - the rickshaw drivers conveniently never have change).

-I've been to India before (this is a key one - it is NEVER your first time in India)

-Yes I do believe in astrology (...ok this in itself is a lie. I just can't bring myself to say that one).